Hard-working Americans: More productive than ever, and paying the price for it.

Friday, December 14, 2012

The Right-wing, Koch-backed extremists aren’t going to stop their assault on the middle class. We need to stand together and make sure Michigan is the last Right to Work FOR LESS state in our great union.

“Gutting unions is the last thing we need to do at a time when the income gap is growing.” How can unions be hurting the economy when Wall Street and corporations are doing better than ever? If anything, we need to strengthen unions to ensure hard-working Americans get a decent wage and a seat at the table.

Unions are being weakened by the second thanks to Citizens United, globalization, slow growth, and corporate attacks. “To staunch this anti-union assault, the Democrats have to make the defense of union rights and power a central, organic component of their message to American voters, office holders and workers -- both white collar and blue.”

This article shows our income inequality crisis in a series of charts. You can probably guess what it shows without looking; the working and middle class have been more productive than ever, but our hourly wages have drastically fallen. Yet, incomes for the wealthiest Americans have skyrocketed.

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The great American middle class wasn’t something that just happened – it was built brick by brick. It was built by soldiers returning from war and a government that repaid them by giving them a shot at college.

What the wealthy and well-connected figured out is that they have strength in numbers: the numbers of dollars they contribute to politicians. It’s time working and middle class Americans use our strength in numbers to reclaim the American Dream. We need a counterweight to the power of big money – and that’s the power of big numbers, the power of ordinary people who work for a living demanding to have our voices heard – from the workplace to Washington.